The footsteps drew closer and closer, yet the shattered platform remained deathly silent.
Nobody even had enough attention left to cry out in alarm.
The reason was that the phoenix bound to Liu Yang Yang was eating in midair.
It bent its head and tore violently into Chen Li Chi’s corpse, starting from the head and swallowing it chunk by chunk, while the crimson color of its beak grew steadily deeper.
Everyone was so overwhelmed by the spectacle that they practically wished they could split their eyes into two pairs—one to stare downward at the terrifying abyssal fissure and the other to look upward at the powerful, magnificent, mysterious phoenix.
Taking advantage of that exact opportunity, while everyone struggled to decide where their attention belonged… Qin Shu silently stepped forward several paces and abruptly punched Liu Bai Long’s husband.
His knuckles struck the skull with a dull, tooth-aching sound. It felt like smashing open a fresh, juice-filled watermelon, and the man’s head was instantly reduced to pulp.
The man was a corpse, and he had already been dead for a very long time.
When the head of an old corpse like this was smashed apart with bare hands, the sensation transmitted back to Qin Shu could have resembled almost anything, but it absolutely should not have felt like a fresh, juicy watermelon.
His skull was filled with writhing threads identical to those inside Granny A-Shu, except that these were even wetter, fatter, and more active. Each strand was almost as thick as a human little finger, and they had already begun taking on the faint outline of “living creatures.”
Put bluntly, they looked like maggots on the verge of completing their development.
In Qin Shu’s eyes, disposing of these filthy things took much higher priority than dealing with the underworld soldiers climbing up from below.
He crouched and patiently gathered the maggotlike strands together by hand. He crushed several first, studying their internal structure and peculiar texture until he understood them properly, then fed all the remaining ones to Yuanbao.
Yuanbao did not seem very fond of the taste. It wrapped its thin tail limbs around a struggling bundle of threads and tossed them toward Pei Zhao. A certain little black fluffball was hiding beside Pei Zhao’s shoes, trembling so hard from fear that it looked ready to faint at any moment.
“Want to eat them?” Pei Zhao gently nudged it forward with the tip of his shoe. “You can.”
Coalball hesitated briefly, but appetite ultimately defeated terror. It cautiously stepped forward, its round body stretching little by little as it moved, bending into a grotesquely hunched shape. A dry old neck appeared, followed by loose sagging skin and then… Chen Li Chi’s head.
So Chen Li Chi really was dead.
Coalball might have been cowardly, but it was clever. Even when taking only a few bites of food, it still remembered to protect itself, directly borrowing Chen Li Chi’s terrifying face as a bluff.
Qin Shu did not interfere with the way the two little monsters divided their food. He turned and walked toward Granny A-Shu instead. She was lying within a protective circle of villagers, tended by the village chief and two masked residents.
They had removed the emergency strips Qin Shu had tied around her torso, then crushed together medicinal herbs of various strong smells and strange colors and applied the wet mixture over the bowl-sized wound in her chest.
The bleeding had stopped, but such a mangled puncture wound would never heal easily. She was now missing what had functioned as a genuine heart… and Qin Shu had no idea whether herbs alone could keep her alive.
Of course, Qin Shu had not come over merely to check on Granny A-Shu. He had approached because another problem needed immediate attention.
Something was moving on Liu Bai Long’s face.
She had gone through a series of emotional shocks today, and naturally her expression had changed repeatedly—bewilderment, astonishment, fear, forced calm… all reasonable reactions, none especially extreme. As one of the village’s central figures, she might not have been capable of absolute composure, but she certainly could not afford to become the least composed person there.
Only after the phoenix slowly rose into the air, when everyone’s attention had fully shifted away from her, did Liu Bai Long finally find the opportunity to cry in secret—for Chen Li Chi, for Granny A-Shu… and for the husband who had apparently died at some point without her knowing.
She had watched Qin Shu smash her husband’s head apart with one punch, yet she had not tried to stop him. She had not even flinched. Her jaw remained tightly clenched, her eyes red and bloodshot as she endured in silence, never once telling Qin Shu to stop.
As someone born and raised in Phoenix Village, Liu Bai Long understood even better than Qin Shu how serious the situation was when these snow-white strands multiplied like noodles and appeared inside so many different people.
But Liu Bai Long had not realized that although she was crying, grieving silently, and desperately restraining herself… every genuine emotion appeared only on the left half of her face.
The right half was smiling brilliantly.
The large vitiligo patches outlined by dragon-shaped tattoos began twitching violently beyond her control, dragging her cheek upward, curving the corner of her eye into a cheerful arc, and making her eyebrow dance with the movement of her eye. Even the half of her mouth untouched by the skin condition was slowly pulled upward by the writhing flesh until it formed a radiant smile.
Two sides, yin and yang, separated with perfect clarity, as though two entirely different personalities inhabited the same body.
Qin Shu needed to get closer and see what exactly was happening.
He walked around the two drums and stopped calmly before Liu Bai Long. They stared silently at each other for an instant. Liu Bai Long’s pupils contracted sharply, and the left side of her lips moved almost imperceptibly as though she wanted to say something, but her voice was drowned beneath the furious drums.
Boom boom boom! Boom boom boom!
The villagers beat faster and faster, while the marching footsteps of the underworld soldiers drew closer. At some point, the two rhythms began overlapping, pressing against Qin Shu’s eardrums in a chaotic, buzzing vibration.
A chaotic battle was about to begin, and Qin Shu did not believe he possessed the strength to stop the entire conflict by himself.
Before the situation became completely unmanageable, he could only deal with the most troublesome problem first, in case someone escaped in the confusion and caused an even greater disaster from the shadows.
Thus, as he stared at Liu Bai Long, Qin Shu rapidly reconsidered one important question. Pei Zhao had said that insects were always most afraid of fire… but aside from Supreme Lord Laozi’s Three True Fires, was there any flame in the world stronger or more searing than phoenix fire?
Logically, almost none. Yet the flames surrounding this newborn phoenix could scorch the soul itself, and even they could not easily burn away the threads wound around its wings. The phoenix had needed to wrench its wing free with brute force just to break half the restraint.
These things were not insects. Or rather, it was obvious that they were not merely insects.
Qin Shu abruptly realized that his thinking had fallen into a minor trap. The things might look like insects, feel like insects, and even resemble insects when crushed… but according to Chen Li Chi, their true name was the Karmic Thread.
Burning them might not be the most effective method. He could still cut them, sever them, tear them apart—there were many approaches he had not yet attempted.
“Village Chief, we need to deal with your skin condition.” Qin Shu leaned forward and spoke slowly beside Liu Bai Long’s ear. “It’s about to come alive. You really haven’t noticed?”
As the distance between them closed, Qin Shu finally heard what Liu Bai Long had been murmuring.
“Kill it, kill it, kill it…”
Every muscle in her body strained. Her lips twitched as she desperately tried to speak loudly enough for Qin Shu to understand, producing only faint breaths. “Qin Shu, I don’t care what method you use… I’ll cooperate. Hurry, hurry… Hurry and kill the thing on my face!”
Qin Shu did not rush to act. He carefully studied the twitching right side of her face and made an extremely bold guess. “Village Chief Liu, could it be possible that the white patches on your face were never actually a skin disease? That from the very beginning, they were a living thing?”
To put the guess even more boldly, they resembled an actual dragon far too much.
It did not look like some majestic supreme dragon deity, nor did it possess the imposing aura of dragons in films and television dramas. Yet every time Liu Bai Long’s features moved, the tattooed lines outlining the pale patches on her face seemed to become subtly less obvious, losing some of their artificial stiffness like an exceptionally effective visual illusion.
The large white patches would then begin blending naturally into a single whole, especially beneath shifting light and shadow, resembling a vivid, living dragon stretching its tail as it floated across her skin.
Liu Bai Long could no longer process the deeper implications of Qin Shu’s words. She only muttered, “Cut it off. Then… Then cut it off… Do it. Hurry. Please, hurry!”
“Qin Shu, hold out your hand.”
Pei Zhao’s voice came from nearby.
Qin Shu instinctively turned and extended his hand without thinking. A slightly heavy long blade landed in his palm with a smack, already drawn from its sheath.
The stabbing pain in his hand made Qin Shu’s heart jump. It was the same long blade once used by Gui Gong. Because it had circulated briefly through the ghost market, the weapon carried a chilly ghostly aura.
The metal felt like cold iron, and the blade remained razor-sharp, pressing several fresh cuts into Qin Shu’s not-yet-healed palm.
“…Zhaozhao… How did you bring a blade onto the plane? And where did you even pull this out from just now?!”
Even as Qin Shu shouted the question in disbelief, his hands never stopped moving. While Liu Bai Long’s attention was deliberately drawn toward Pei Zhao, Qin Shu moved in the next instant.
A thin layer of mottled facial skin flew from the tip of the blade, caught in the wave of heat from the phoenix’s beating wings, then tumbled downward beneath the heavy ghostly aura clinging to it and fell straight into the fissure.
Fine white threads had been severed along with the skin and emerged from the exposed flesh beneath. Having lost the patch of skin where they had previously rooted themselves and remained imprisoned, the broken snow-white strands rushed outward and writhed aimlessly through the bloody tissue, filling the air with a strong smell of blood.
Half of Liu Bai Long’s face had become a bloody ruin, yet she released a long breath of relief and immediately began tearing the threads out with her bare hands. Her already gruesome right cheek grew more mangled with every movement, while large drops of blood streamed through the gaps between her fingers. She did not stop. It was as though she could no longer feel pain, or as though she had long desperately wanted to remove these “parasites” from herself and had only now finally been given the opportunity.
Liu Bai Long stopped paying attention to Qin Shu, but Qin Shu remained frozen with the long blade in his hand. He stared at her face, then after a moment silently shifted his gaze into the distance.
His head had suddenly become unbearably noisy, with a completely unfamiliar male voice shouting nonstop beside his ear, and Qin Shu could not immediately figure out where it was coming from.
Fuck! &% I’m finally out! The air is fucking great—wow, wow, I can fly!*
Hahahahaha! Good, good, very good! Thanks, little brother! Your big bro’s got your back from now on!
Qin Shu frowned at the noise. “Wait, who are you?”
Hah! Why are ghost generals and ghost soldiers so pathetic these days? I was dying to crawl out and stretch my muscles, but this is boring as hell. Kid, you can handle these little shrimp yourself. I’m going to play with the little phoenix!
“…Wait, who are you?”
The instant the words left Qin Shu’s mouth, the earth veins shook violently. A thick beam of snow-white light burst from the fissure, throwing dirt into the air, stirring the dark clouds, and shooting toward the sky.
Whenever the dense ghostly energy touched it, it gave off a sizzling sound like ice dropped into molten rock, collapsing and dissolving almost instantly.
It was a white dragon. Its snow-white scales were smooth and translucent as jade, silver light gleamed from the spines along its back, and tall horns rose beside its temples. Noon sunlight broke through the clouds and struck it, making the pale body almost painfully bright.
Its body was enormous as a mountain ridge, yet it moved with extraordinary speed and agility, floating through the air as effortlessly as though walking on level ground. Brilliant white light circled lazily around the newborn phoenix, somehow giving the dragon a thoroughly relaxed air.
Then the dragon’s tail, nearly as thick as a person’s torso, suddenly lifted. The tip deliberately aimed at Liu Yang Yang’s abdomen and smashed downward without warning, ripping through the air with a roar like thunder.
A dull, tooth-aching impact followed. Liu Yang Yang was knocked sideways until he hung upside down within the tangled knot formed by the coffin and the threads. Blood streamed from all seven orifices as his body trembled and he released one pained growl after another, sounding like an animal that had lost its mind.
At the same time, the underworld soldiers climbing from the fissure seemed to go mad. They looked almost identical to human beings, except that their faces were dark blue-black like the bottom of a scorched pot. They wore ancient rattan armor, while their damaged helmets and weapons were stained with old blood and traces of cinnabar corrosion.
They looked like evil ghosts, yet even more like desperate defeated soldiers about to leave their bones scattered across the wilderness, their eyes glowing savagely like ghost fire.
Amid Liu Yang Yang’s pained, animalistic howls, they surged forward. Some built “human ladders” by climbing one another toward the coffin, while others raised their broken weapons and charged toward the sound of the drums, spreading in every direction like a tide beneath the violent wind stirred by the white dragon.
A suicidal assault.
Naturally, the ghost soldiers could not injure the phoenix. They climbed over one another’s shoulders only to burn one after another beneath the lingering heat of the divine bird’s wings. Sinister green flames ignited across their broken armor, and their collapsing souls dissolved into faint ghostly energy that scattered over the mountain ridges.
Qin Shu had no time to watch the horrific scene because he could not fly. The sky had become a battlefield, but the ground had become one as well.
Liu Bai Long had temporarily lost the ability to organize everyone, and the elderly corpse herders could no longer remain silent. They muttered incantations, commanding the corpse armies they had hidden throughout the mountains to intercept the underworld soldiers and defend the thunderously beating drums.
Someone roared beside Qin Shu’s ear, “Hold the line! Form up according to the drums! The phoenix still hasn’t broken free—the drums absolutely cannot stop!”
As expected, Phoenix Village had prepared for something like this. Even so, compared with the divine beasts fighting overhead, bodies made from human flesh were clearly disadvantaged against ghosts. The yin energy spread too rapidly, like a swamp continuously eroding everyone’s reason and souls.
Once a commander was injured, the army under their control would lose combat strength as well. This was true for the corpse herders, and naturally it was true for Liu Yang Yang too. The two sides were currently deadlocked, but sooner or later one would collapse first.
Hiss—ow, ow, ow! Why is this kid’s body so damn hard? Who did this to him?! He’s practically tougher than our dragon pearl. What a waste. Wouldn’t it have been better to refine such a good body into a magical artifact…?
Meanwhile, the noise inside Qin Shu’s head continued. He now knew exactly who the speaker was: the white dragon repeatedly whipping its tail against the coffin.
The dragon looked impressive, but after beating Liu Yang Yang for so long, all it had accomplished was turning him into a gruesome, blood-covered mess. Qin Shu narrowed his eyes and looked closer, only to realize that nearly all the blood had come from Liu Yang Yang’s mouth. He might have suffered serious fractures, yet externally his skin was barely injured.
Qin Shu had no idea how long the stalemate would last, and there were only two things he could do.
First, relentlessly mock the white dragon inside his head for being too weak and demand that it find a useful method. Second… immediately enter the battle and kill every ghost soldier that crossed the defensive line and tried to attack the corpse herders.
For Qin Shu, that was not particularly difficult.
He held the long blade in one hand and clenched the other into a fist as he positioned himself before the two elderly drummers. The ghost soldiers’ armor was thinner than paper beneath the blade and could not withstand Qin Shu’s knuckles either. There was almost no genuine exchange of blows; he cut through them like chopping vegetables.
The little centipede required no instructions. It rushed gleefully into the battle, darting through the almost tangible ghostly energy while dazzling golden radiance covered its blood-red body. Every ghost and evil thing it touched died instantly, making Yuanbao resemble a divine dragon blazing with heavenly power.
Even Coalball somehow found rare courage and flapped after Yuanbao as fast as possible, driven to desperation by the feast spread before it.
Even now, it was still wearing a face identical to Chen Li Chi’s. Sagging eyelids trembled with every motion, sparse white hair shook above cracked blue-white lips… □□ a thin neck as skinny as firewood strung all those features together and planted them into a fuzzy black ball. The result was more frightening than the ghosts themselves.
Elio’s Notes: The raw itself has `□□` here. Those two characters are missing in the source, so I’ve left the gap visible rather than guessing.
The two little monsters were clearly enjoying themselves, but Qin Shu was not.
One slash, one punch. Someone fell, a ghost screamed, and the mechanical cycle repeated endlessly. The scene before his eyes gradually blurred from clarity into a chaotic mixture of black, white, and blood-red.
His mind insisted that he should not experience pleasure from slaughtering the ghost soldiers, yet his body produced a strange rush of exhilaration on its own. His muscles and joints seemed to rejoice in the sound of cutting wind, while the black beast horn on his forehead had already torn through his skin of its own accord, reveling freely in the endless death.
Qin Shu’s mind found the entire situation inexplicable, because this chaotic battle lacked a true central villain. Phoenix Village’s Drum Tower stood quietly in the distance, the deep cave remained utterly silent, and the source of the threads was still unknown… yet the enemy army Qin Shu was fighting seemed to have been summoned by one of their own people.
From time to time, he turned his head to check where Pei Zhao was. Only after confirming that not a single ghost had paid him the slightest attention, and that Pei Zhao still stood quietly in place beneath the golden light triggered by the cat’s-eye bracelet on his wrist, would Qin Shu raise the long blade again and step back into the fog of yin energy.
It seemed that only by doing so could he keep his reason steady, separating himself from the strange physical pleasure inside him and continuing to think clearly.
The white dragon, after enduring Qin Shu’s insults for quite some time, finally stopped ignoring him and snapped.
I’m weak?! That’s because you’re weak! Who told you to have such a laughably tiny bit of cultivation? I finally break the seal, only to have my upper limit restricted by yours. I can’t even compare with that baby phoenix! What exactly am I supposed to do about it?!
“…Restricted by me?”
Qin Shu froze, suddenly realizing something, and his heart gave an uneasy jolt.
He lowered his gaze to his palm, where an unhealed cut remained.
Then he looked toward the cold edge of the long blade, where his blood still stained the place that had cut him when he caught it.
He had used a blade stained with his own blood to cut open the right side of Liu Bai Long’s face.
Kid, how else do you expect me to explain it? You want me fawning over my master like those shameless fox spirits? Ha! I have dignity too, all right?!
“…Huh?”
Qin Shu was still digesting the unbelievable implication, but the white dragon had already worked itself into a rage and was slamming its tail furiously against the coffin.
Don’t play dumb with me! Your big bro might not know what kind of evil art your spirit-pet contract is, but I’m still a true dragon—the biological son of Ao Run of the West Sea! How could I possibly submit to your control?!
Elio’s Notes: In Journey to the West, Ao Run (敖闰) is one of the names used for the Dragon King of the West Sea, one of the Four Sea Dragon Kings. Dragon-King names vary across texts and later traditions.
Fuck, you’ve got some nerve… If I hadn’t noticed that you seem a little unusual, like you’re not something destined to remain in a pond forever, your big bro would’ve found a chance to slap you dead with my tail already!